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Google Fiber is coming to Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham

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Re: Google Fiber is coming to Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham

#41

Post by dingaling »

nostromo wrote: post #32
evo_9 wrote: post #16

Is there any rime or reason to the cities that Google chooses to put fiber into? Is it a matter of more friendly local government, less resistant local teleco's, a combination thereof or some other factors? Just seems the locations aren't exactly tech hubs so I'm trying to get a better idea of how the expansion works.

Friendly local government is a big factor. For example: Google looked at Seattle's NIMBY laws regarding utility boxes on sidewalks (each requiring a lengthy community approval process) and said, "Nope!" Seattle's new mayor is now looking how to streamline the process to make the city more Google friendly, should the opportunity arise again.

> Google looked at Seattle's NIMBY laws regarding utility boxes on sidewalks (each requiring a lengthy community approval process)

Which is good, as sidewalks are for walking, not utility installation pads.

In much of the UK outside conservation areas BT has powers to install cabinets as it sees fit. Combined with utility poles there are now some pavements on my town impassable to prams.

Re: Google Fiber is coming to Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham

#42

Post by atwebb »

coldcode wrote: post #23

I bet it never comes to the DFW area. Home of Verizon FIOS. Oddly enough I live in Arlington and FIOS is not (nor ever will be) available.

I dunno, Nashville's got the AT&T building, heck Google put it squarely in the shot and images for this rollout, seems almost like a message, though it is pretty iconic in a city with little other skyline.

Re: Google Fiber is coming to Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham

#43

Post by troymc »

pcmonk wrote: post #20

Man, that map is impossible to read. Even as a fairly mildly colorblind person, there's no way I can distinguish the colors.

Here's an idea for a web plugin: it takes displayed colors that you have difficulty distinguishing and moves them in color space, to the point where you can distinguish them.

Re: Google Fiber is coming to Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham

#44

Post by cwal37 »

I am now surrounded by Google Fiber to the east and west, and Chattanooga's public fiber to the south, out here in Knoxville, TN. I really wish we could manage something here. This area has the biggest national lab, and a host of tech industry around it, I was kind of surprised more options didn't exist when I moved down a year ago.

It makes sense to me that Google went after these southeastern markets, because we are the area where Comcast is already enforcing (I've had to pay a couple times) data caps[1]. It's called a "trial" on their site, but the charges are real.

[1] http://customer.comcast.com/help-and-support/internet/data-u...

Re: Google Fiber is coming to Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham

#45

Post by benesch »

slowmovintarget wrote: post #5

>> It’s been nearly five years since we offered to build a fiber-optic network in one U.S. city as an experiment — and were met with overwhelming enthusiasm. I suspect the enthusiasm had to do with Google not acting like a phone/cable company. My own hope is that this remains true, and that they come to the Boston area.

I'm with you, but don't get your hopes up. Verizon never wired the city for FiOS because it was "too costly" [0].

Though something I always wanted to try when I lived downtown was netBlazr [1], which beams internet from antennas on the tops of buildings. If you've got your own place or can convince your landlord to install an antenna, they get fantastic reviews.

[0]: http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/10/08/wahlberg-fios...

[1]: http://www.netblazr.com/residential/

Re: Google Fiber is coming to Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham

#46

Post by mbreese »

daigoba66 wrote: post #9
rkalla wrote: post #6

For anyone interested... the whole motivation of Google Fiber to motivate ISPs to stop gouging us does exactly what it is designed to do. Cox, in Phoenix, miraculously doubled everyone's speeds > 100mbps last year because they were concerned with our general happiness levels and wanted to show their affection. Nope... that's not it. Ran into two leads at Smash Burger in June of 2014 and asked them on the spot "When a…

In my market (Atlanta) it's not even really about the speed. Granted Comcast is far more expensive per mbps than Google Fiber. It is "fast enough" except that Comcast will cap data usage to about 300 GB per month before charging fees.

Maybe they are targeting area that have data caps? Perhaps that's one reason why Google hasn't announced anything in the Bay Area.

Re: Google Fiber is coming to Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham

#48

Post by toomuchtodo »

chiph wrote: post #25

Advice to all the folks in the new cities: Google deploys per-neighborhood, once signups reach a critical level. So get your apartment manager, your HOA, your neighbors to sign up, even if they don't have any immediate plans to switch. Post tear-off-tag signs in your community with the url: google.com/fiber

One could use lob.com to send postcards to everyone in their neighborhood about why they should sign up with that link...

Re: Google Fiber is coming to Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham

#49

Post by rkalla »

tortilla wrote: post #8
rkalla wrote: post #6

For anyone interested... the whole motivation of Google Fiber to motivate ISPs to stop gouging us does exactly what it is designed to do. Cox, in Phoenix, miraculously doubled everyone's speeds > 100mbps last year because they were concerned with our general happiness levels and wanted to show their affection. Nope... that's not it. Ran into two leads at Smash Burger in June of 2014 and asked them on the spot "When a…

Yup, I got the postcards from Cox in my neighborhood (N. Scottsdale). Same thoughts as you.

Did you get the 'GigLife' flyer? If you notice in the footnotes, "GigLife is 150mbps internet service" -- the Gigabit service is a different thing they are calling 'Gig Blast' or something like that.

So (intentionally) confusing :(

Re: Google Fiber is coming to Atlanta, Charlotte, Nashville and Raleigh-Durham

#50

Post by russnewcomer »

Competition isn't always the boon to free enterprise that we would like it to be. I live in Omaha, NE, where Cox and CenturyLink are the primary ISPs. CenturyLink has limited gigabit fiber in some neighborhoods (not mine, unfortunately), launched late last year.

Cox has raised internet rates about 7% twice in the last 14 months.

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